“Have you noticed its eyes?” he said.
“That’s what I’m saying, it’s following us with its eyes,” the black-haired man insisted. “It’s listening to our conversation.”
Sherman shook his head. “No, I mean its eyes don’t look like a bird’s eyes.” He stepped closer, and she leaned toward him. “They look like human eyes. Like…”
“Dude, don’t stand so close,” the younger brother hissed. “That beak looks lethal.”
But Sherman ignored him, taking another step toward her. “They look like the eyes of someone I know.”
“Have you been eating those mushrooms, Sherman?” Matthias asked, chuckling.
Sherman stepped closer, until he was right in front of her. She reached out a wing, and he brushed her feathers with his fingertips. Behind him, she heard the other guys gasp and murmur, no doubt shocked at her behavior, at the fact that an eagle had let a strange human touch it. But she only had eyes for Sherman.
“Joanna?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
She bobbed her head, the bird version of a nod, and she heard hisses and gasps from the other men on the boat. But her eyes were still locked on Sherman.
He smiled at her. “Look at you,” he whispered, running a hand gently over her wing. “So beautiful.”
“Dude, why didn’t you tell us you know an eagle shifter?” The younger brother, she guessed.
“Didn’t know she was an eagle shifter,” Sherman replied. “Is that why you knew about me when you saw me?” he asked her.
She shook her head. God, she wished she knew how to change back. She needed to talk to him. She was tired of this pantomime.
“This is stupid. Can you just change back?” the black-haired man asked her, echoing her thoughts.
She let out a cry of distress, shifting from claw to claw.
“For fuck’s sake, stop acting like you can’t!” the younger brother growled.
“Maybe she doesn’t want you looking at her naked, Colton,” his brother shot back. “Have some respect for the girl.”
Now that he mentioned it, she wondered what had happened to her pajamas. Probably shredded, or cast aside if she was lucky, when she changed.
“Or maybe she really doesn’t know how to change back,” Matthias said, shooting her a thoughtful look.
“Or maybe-”
“Enough!” Sherman’s shout cut through the debate, silencing his friends. “Joanna,” he said in a softer tone. “Is this your first time shifting?”
She bobbed her head, letting out a soft cry.
“I don’t buy it. How can this be her first time shifting? How old is she?” the younger brother - Colton, she thought they called him - asked. He was beginning to get on her nerves. Would it kill him to give her the benefit of the doubt?
“I think she’s about my age,” Sherman said. “Maybe a little younger.”
“Ridiculous. I shifted when I was a baby,” Colton said. “Henry did, too.” He gestured to the man with the black hair, so she guessed that was his name.
“I was nine,” his brother offered. “And Sherman said he was twelve.”
“We don’t all change when we’re kids,” Matthias said. “I was twenty-two the first time I shifted.”
“I didn’t know that,” Henry said, surprise coloring his tone.
Matthias shrugged. “Never came up,” he said. “We were too busy trying to survive when we first met to swap stories.”
A dark look passed over the other man’s face. “Don’t remind me.”
“Anyway, back to your lady friend,” the older brother said.
“Joanna,” Sherman corrected.
“Okay, well, Joanna, I’m Finn,” the blond man said, nodding his head at her. “How’s about we get you back to your human self?”
She bobbed her head again, feeling grateful. She was hungry - for human food, not raw fish or snakes or mice or whatever it was eagles ate. And she was so tired she felt like she could sleep for a week.
“Okay, so it’s real simple like. You just will yourself human again.”
She stared at him, wondering if she could get away with raking him with her talons. Or nipping him with her beak. Just a little nip. If it were that easy, she’d be sitting on the deck of the boat, buck naked and shivering, by now. Or she’d be at home, in her bed, curled up under the blankets.
“I’m pretty sure she’d have done that by now if she could,” Henry said drily. She cawed in agreement.
“It’s a little deeper than that, but that’s the basic principle,” Sherman said. “You need to focus wholly on the idea of being human, until it becomes almost an idea in your subconscious. It helps if you close your eyes and visualize it,” he added.
So she squeezed her eyes shut, picturing her human self in her mind. She remembered how the dirt felt between her toes, and how water felt against her skin, and how much the sensation of brushing her hair soothed her. She remembered the feeling of power in her arms when she rowed her dad’s old boat, the way her nose itched right before she sneezed, and the rush of pleasure when she orgasmed.
She felt that same pinching sensation she had earlier, when she’d first shifted. And then she tumbled backward off the boat and into the Sound.
She kicked out with her legs - her legs! - and swam upward with all her strength. When her head cleared the surface, she gulped in clean, cool air. She looked around, relieved to see she was only a few feet from the boat.
Sherman was poised on the stern like he was about to dive in after her. Henry shouted, pointing to her, but Sherman seemed not to hear him. It wasn’t until Matthias grabbed the back of his shirt that Sherman looked up.
By then, she had reached the boat and was climbing up the ladder. When her feet hit the deck, she stood, stretching herself. Relishing the feeling of her human limbs. Then she looked up.
They were all standing there, mouths agape, staring at her. She whimpered softly, remembering she was naked.
Sherman seemed to snap out of it first. “Avert your eyes, idiots,” he growled, stepping forward and whipping his shirt off. He pulled it down over her head, and she pushed her arms through the sleeves. She kept herself from sniffing the shirt, but just barely. It smelled like cedar and clean male - just like him. “Fucking heathens,” he muttered. She heard a bunch of embarrassed coughs and throats clearing, but it took her a moment before she had the courage to look up at them. None of them were looking at her.
“Nobody tells Lila about this,” Henry said, looking at his friends sternly.
“Or Irina,” Finn said, his cheeks reddening.
She chuckled. “Not your fault, really.” She looked down, pleased to see that the hem of the tee shirt went down to her mid-thigh. “I wasn’t thinking. This has been kind of overwhelming.”
Sherman pushed her wet hair back from her face. “You do look tired.”
She swayed a little, and he caught her under her elbows. “Just what every girl loves to hear,” she joked, chuckling weakly. She guessed, by the position of the sun overhead, that it was about noon. She’d been flying for hours.
He kissed her forehead, to hoots and hollers from his friend. “Let’s get you back to shore.”
Henry cleared his throat. “We’re behind on our production numbers this week, man,” he said, gesturing to the nets they’d been about to cast, before Joanna landed her feathery butt on their boat and derailed their morning. “And it’s almost the end of the season. We can’t afford to lose more time.” He flashed Joanna an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. Is there a cabin below? I can just catch some sleep down there.”
“Yeah, there’s a bunk down there,” Henry replied. “Should be some clean clothes, too, but they’ll probably be too big for you.”
She nodded her thanks, and Sherman took her hand, again earning snickers and teasing comments. He led her down below decks to a small cabin with a narrow single bed. She leaned against the doorframe as he rooted around in th
e drawers, pulling out a pair of sweatpants and a tee shirt. He also pulled a towel down from a bulkhead, taking her braid and wringing it out. The intimacy of the simple gesture made her shiver, and they stood there for a few moments, just staring at each other.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll give you some privacy to change. Just go ahead and sleep as long as you need to.” Then he turned to go.
“Actually,” she said, and he stopped, turning his head. “Here.” She held out the clean tee shirt he'd handed her. “Take this.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You don't want a fresh shirt?”
She blushed. “This one smells like you,” she whispered, looking down to avoid his eye. She bit her lip. She wasn't sure why she felt so shy all of a sudden. He'd just seen her naked, after all. And he already knew she wanted him.
He tipped her chin up, smiling at her, his eyes hooded and hazy. “Then keep it,” he said. He pressed his lips to hers lightly. “I like that you want to smell like me.”
She tried to smile back, but a yawn overtook her.
He chuckled. “Sleep, beautiful girl.” Then he turned and left.
She watched him go, sighing. They always seemed to have such awful timing. But she was too tired to think about that now. She was too tired to think of much anything. She pulled the sweatpants on, pulling the drawstring as tight as it could go.
And then she crawled into the narrow bunk and immediately fell asleep.
CHAPTER NINE
When Joanna awoke, she felt rested for the first time in months, maybe even years. She was itching to see Sherman again, to finish what they'd started this morning. And last night. And two weeks ago.
Sexual frustration was nothing new to Joanna. Living with her rigid, uptight mother didn't exactly lend itself to bringing dates home. And on the rare occasions when she could get away to the mountain cabin for a romantic interlude, her partners were typically underwhelming. At least in comparison to how she felt after just a few stolen kisses with Sherman.
But thinking about her mother reminded her that she really needed to check in at home. She was likely to be furious with Joanna for missing her shift at the shop. And it probably looked like she’d snuck out in the middle of the night, she thought ruefully.
She sighed as she sat up, stretching her muscles. She felt far better now, after a good rest. Not as achy as she was before she shifted. She no longer felt like she was about to burst out of her skin. She felt more or less like her normal self now.
She looked around the little cabin. There was no clock to tell the time, and the porthole was too small to see the position of the sun. She carefully climbed out of the bed, ducking to be sure she didn’t hit her head on the low ceiling. She made her way to the door, but before she could open it, there was a knock.
“Joanna?” Sherman’s deep bass was soft, like he didn’t want to wake her.
She took the last half-step to the door and opened it. “I’m awake.”
He smiled. “I can see that.” He pulled her close, kissing her softly. “How did you sleep?”
She smiled back. “Very well. I feel much better now.”
He kissed her again. “Good. We’re done for the day,” he said. “I was just coming to tell you we’re almost back at the dock.” His expression grew hesitant. “Would you like to come home with me?”
She could have screamed in frustration. Here she’d been waiting for him to make a move, and now that he had, it was once again the wrong moment. “I need to head home. I was supposed to work at my family’s shop today. They’ll be mad that I missed my shift.”
He took a step back, looking disappointed, and she bit her lip. “I’m sure your mother must be worried.”
She snorted. “I doubt that. Probably more like ready to wring my neck.”
He chuckled. “Well, you don’t have to take that anymore. You’re a badass eagle shifter now.”
She shook her head slowly, not meeting his eye. “I wish I could say that. But she’d probably still control my life to the nth degree.”
When she finally dared to look up, his expression was thoughtful. “Is that how you want it?”
She frowned. “Well, no. But I don’t really have much of a choice.”
He cupped her face in his hands, and she shivered at the feel of his rough skin against hers. “Joanna, you always have a choice. The only reason she walks all over you is that you choose to let her. You can choose not to, as well.”
She chuckled nervously. “Is this more of your philosophy?”
He shook his head. “No, just something I learned from my own mother. My father started to treat me poorly after the first time I shifted. He’d yell at me, tell me I was disgusting and unnatural. That I was going to hell unless I stopped shifting.” He looked away, his eyes going hazy with the memories. “And I let him. I let him speak to me like I was sub-human. I didn’t argue that I couldn’t stop shifting, that I couldn’t change who I was. I just let him rag on me.” He took a shaky breath. “Until my mother found out about it, and she told me I had a choice. I could continue to put up with my father’s abuse, or I could demand better.”
“What did you do?”
“I demanded better.”
“And what happened? Did he start to behave better?”
He chuckled, but it was a humorless sound. “No. He tried to hit me with a chair.”
Her mouth dropped open in horror. “Oh my God.” She put her arms around his waist. “Were you okay?”
He smiled, but it was sad. “Yeah. Like I said, he tried it. But I shifted. Right in the middle of his kitchen. I was smaller back then, obviously. I was only thirteen. But an adolescent bear is still dangerous.”
She held her breath, hardly daring to ask the question she needed to ask. “Did you… did you hurt him?”
He shook his head. “No. I think I knew even then that I would just be stooping to his level.” He rubbed her back, like he was trying to soothe her, when really, it should be her comforting him.
“So, what happened after that?”
He sighed. “My mother took me to California, where her parents lived, and we never saw him again. They weren’t married when they had me, and they’d hadn’t been together since I was a baby.” He shrugged. “No idea what happened to him after we left. Never cared to find out.”
She understood that, to a certain degree. She’d never looked for her father, either. She figured he knew where they were, if he ever cared enough to come back. But she’d always been hurt by the fact that he never did. And the pain in Sherman’s eyes told her he might have cared a bit more than he let on, too. But she didn’t press the issue.
She thought about what he’d said, about what it might mean for her own situation with her mother. She felt awful for what Sherman had been through, but she knew he and his mother had done what was best for him. But she wasn’t sure it would be best for her. She didn’t think she could leave her mother behind, not for good. It would mean leaving her sisters, her grandfather, even her tribe. It would be the end of her life as she knew it. She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to make a completely new start. And she wasn’t sure she needed to. She just couldn’t believe her mother was irredeemable.
“I don’t want it to come to that for me,” she whispered.
He hugged her tighter. “I don’t want that for you, either.” He kissed her forehead. “But you need to understand that this won’t be easy. Ask any of the guys up there,” he said, flicking his head up, gesturing to his friends above deck, “and they’ll tell you a story similar to mine. Not all are as bad. Some are worse. But it’s like you said when we first met. Our opinions will always influence the way we see things. The same will be true for your mother.”
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